Beware it’s very, very scary. Not a pleasant amount. Enough to shock the socks off anyone…

But keep in mind we are a family of eight with three teenage sons, and sadly no garden of which to brag about this year. – NEXT YEAR it will be awesome.

Sorry for beating the bush leafless but back to the total.

$347.00 per week. Scary right? I’ve had weeks where it’s over $400.

So this week – our total was

Drum roll please:

$110.45And of this $110 at least $28 was those canning supplies and another $16 was dog food for Itchy. Yes Itchy’s food comes out of our grocery budget. I figure that if the world ends and we eat through our food storage then we can always eat Itchy’s food – before we start consuming the bugs. Anyway it’s on our list.

So if you take those two off we spent $66.05 on actual food.

That my friends, is quite remarkable – for me at least.

I don’t think we will be down as low this coming week because I can see some things like laundry detergent, diapers and such that we will need to get next week.

I know we could probably go lower if we decided to eat purely from our food storage but I look at this whole month as a stepping stone to living a more needful, less materialistic overall life. So if I get a good sale to add to my food storage to replace something I used then, by golly, I’ll do it.

Other money I saved from getting sucked out of our account this week – Abner permitted me to cut his hair. Because I did it with scissors, don’t have any hair clippers anymore, it took a while. Probably a good hour fifteen minutes or at least we almost made it through the whole Napoleon Dynamite movie while I was feverously snipping. He was too mortified to have me take a picture (Not because it looked awful) but because he’s a teenager and that would be too embarrassing. And if he thought it was yuck he was kind enough not to tell me. I think it looks o.k. and I know several people at church said it looked good. I’m not comfortable cutting hair and it takes so long but I figure if I can round up some nice clippers and practice a bit then this could be a viable thing to do- permitting my boys keep allowing me to experiment.

This week I’m going to attempt something I’ve never in my life done before. I haven’t told Prince Erik about it yet because I don’t know if would scare the be-geebers out of him to know I was trying it. But I want to try it. May make a huge mess and wonder what in the blazes I was thinking but I’m going to give it the old college try and… get this… change the cruddy oil filter on the family tank. I think with it’s monster truck tires I should be able to wedge my rapidly shrinking body under it long enough to do the job.

The liquid sunshine is also supposed to hold off this week so I’m going to see if I can’t string up some line out back to hang dry some clothes as well. So wishing I had a clothesline still.

Right now I’m sure we are still in the honeymoon stage of seeing everything that we can do for ourselves. And I can see how making homemade bread can get tedious but until then I’m really beginning to enjoy seeing how little I can spend.

And if this month works well maybe I can encourage my kiddos’ to try it for yet another month and another, and just maybe we might be able to afford to take the Family to CA for a last big family trip to Disneyland before Abner leaves the nest.

11 comments:

Absolutely terrific week! See, hair cutting and oil changes are not soemthing I am willing to tackle. I've been known to HELP change the oil by handing over tools and rags, but I can't see me tackling that on my own!

I am very impressed by your grocery total!! However, I do think it would be kind of cheating to use your food storage because you'd just have to replace it later.

I would never even consider, not even for one second, changing my own oil, and I never seem to be able to convince Jeff to do it for me either. But it doesn't surprise me at all that that would be something that you would be able to do.

I also cut my boys hair (with scissors). Tanner hates to get his hair cut in a salon, so it actually works in favor of my budget. But like you, it takes me FOREVER. I do have to say that I impress myself with how good it looks though.

I don't consider myself helpless by any stretch of the imagination; I can change a tire without batting an eye. But I have to say, I'm way too chicken to take on a homemade oil change. Cars are infinitely complicated these days, what with the internal combustion engines and spark plugs and dipsticks, and saving $35 doesn't seem worth the risk of having to replace the engine b/c something somewhere wasn't tightened properly or something. You're very brave. Very brave indeed.

Wow! I am very impressed with your week. Good luck with your oil change! I remember Nate changed the oil on our Passat once and accidently drained the transmission fluid instead of the oil! Haha! We ended up having to get the car towed to the mechanic and it cost us a whole lot of money. (of course at the time this was not funny AT ALL.)

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

Henry David Thoreaufrom the "Conclusion" to Walden

I Belong...

". . .Dear women, I say thanks to you. Thank you for being the kind of people you are and doing the things you do. May the blessings of heaven rest upon you. May your prayers be answered and your hopes and dreams become realities. . .May you live with love one for another. May you reach down to lift up those whose burdens are heavy. May you bring light and beauty to the world and particularly into your homes and into the lives of your children. . . You may never know how much good you accomplish. Someone's life will be blessed by your effort. . . " President Gordon B. Hinckley